Hey Jude…
The Source
When you reach a certain age you no longer have flashbacks. Flashbacks require memory and everything prior to last week has morphed into a blur to me. But if flashbacking was still possible I had one recently when I attended The Beatles, Rain at Springfield’s Sangamon Auditorium. The show is a whirlwind tour of the Beatles’ musical career performed by a group of very talented mop head impersonators, and it plays very well whether you’re six or sixty. I know I wasn’t the only person in the nearly sold-out house who looked around with some amusement as 2000 or so old hippies limped to their seats. Our flower power’s petals were drooping but we were ready to relive and perhaps retrieve a portion of our youth as the black and white footage from the Ed Sullivan show preceded the band’s first number. And then the hits came rolling in, from the early days of Day Tripper all the way to the guru-influenced Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Song after song brought back the memory of incense and idealism as the mostly baby-booming audience was transported to the days when we adored JFK and Prell shampoo instead of Myralax and Polident. On about every third song the actor playing George Harrison would motion for us to get to our feet. That was so easy in 1967 when I could actually find my feet. Forty years ago we grabbed our beads and jumped up. On the night of this concert we grabbed for the seat ahead of us for leverage. In the sixties we held our cigarette lighters in the air and swayed back and forth because we were about to change the world. Tonight the swaying was due more to vertigo. I’m not dissing the spectators. On the contrary, I was moved more by the audience response than the excellent concert itself. Before the show began a young lady sat down next to me, introduced her 20-something self as a reporter for a local paper, and asked if I’d answer some questions for her article. Her questions were lame and her reaction to the concert was ho-hum. I wanted to choke her with my tie-dyed shirt. When we rose to exit the theatre I turned and said, “The real story tonight wasn’t onstage, it was in the audience. Did you see that? 2000 people wanting desperately to recapture that sense of idealism and purpose?” She looked at me as if I was smoking something illegal. I hope her editor rejects her report. She couldn’t see the flashback I was having…August 21st, 1966, St. Louis Busch Stadium. 23,143 screaming fans paid the outrageous price of $5.50 a ticket to see the Beatles and I was one of them. The band performed 11 songs through the 200 speakers peppered throughout the then new Cardinal ball field and I don’t think I heard a one of them. The hour or so concert was one prolonged scream and I totally impressed my high school date with my ability to snag the tickets. But something had been bothering me for the past 47 years. Who else was with us? I’m sure that I was double dating with some other couple but my flashback was blurry. Then it happened…a fellow stood up in the row ahead of us and said, “Kenny Brad! 1966! Busch Stadium! The Buick Skylark!” It was my old high school friend Jerry Waters who not only remembered the year but what car I was driving. I wanted so badly to grab him by the lapels and start quizzing him…Where else did we go that night? What did we do? ..but I was afraid that with Jerry’s memory being better than mine that he’d actually remember and announce the details of our trip right in front of my students in the seat beside me. I have a memory that sweetly erodes everything I need to forget, but Jerry’s seemed to be airtight and potentially scandalous. I was blessed that night by the presence of two teenagers who were not only fans of the Beatles’ music, but also astute observers of the human condition. They loved the concert and on our ride home I was peppered with questions of what it was like “back then.” Since for me “back then” and “yesterday” are practically the same, my answers came easily. Yes, we thought we could change the world. No, it Jacksonville didn’t have many protests. No, we had no idea at the time that music was changing in front of our eyes. Yes, we did wear tight-legged jeans and use butch wax. No, I had no idea what the song “I am the Walrus,” meant, and finally, “Did the Beatles do drugs? (See “I am the Walrus” above.) One of life’s simpler joys is being able to tell yourself…Wait a minute. I do remember that! There are worse ways to spend an evening than traveling the stretch of Interstate between Springfield and Jacksonville joining in with the voices of two young men singing, “Hey Jude…then we can start…to make it better.”